The Watcher
Juvenile slow worm.
This is for the Smile on Saturday group’s Mini in Minimalism theme this week, though I hope the picture of a reptile will be acceptable in a smiling group :)
Although I had a few ideas for the theme (involving peppercorns would you believe) I had decided in view of the warm weather to abandon all hope and concentrate on digging myself out from under the pile of gardening jobs.
Then I came across this rather sleepy young slow worm and the germ of an idea grew and refused to be ignored.
We’ve had a breeding pair of slow worms in the garden for many years now, sometimes two I think. They are a gardener's best friend eating as they do slugs, and snail and slug eggs.
Strictly speaking, they are not snakes but more of a legless lizard. They are usually quite shy (they tend to get attacked by cats and large birds) so you don’t often see them - they hide under our heathers.
This poor juvenile had got stuck on the concrete at the bottom of the stairs from the upper garden where the nests usually are. The adults have no problem with stairs, but the juveniles aren’t long enough and are not proficient at climbing inside corners. The juveniles, like bird chicks, are less experienced and prone to fall foul of roaming felines.
You can pick them up and they wriggle a bit, the adults being surprisingly strong. But they usually calm down and are quite docile.
Unlike the tropical lizards of my youth they never seem to try and bite you when you handle them so it’s easy to move them to safer parts of the garden when they go astray.
The head of this one is about a centimetre long and the whole animal is about the size of a thin pencil.
Thank you for taking time to look. I hope you enjoy the image (and manage to smile in spite of the subject!). HSoS :)
PS I rather like Flickr's thumbnail of this. Very minimalist!
[Handheld in daylight (No! The camera - I placed the beastie on a sheet of white paper ;-) )
Developed and processed in Affinity Photo.]
The Watcher
Juvenile slow worm.
This is for the Smile on Saturday group’s Mini in Minimalism theme this week, though I hope the picture of a reptile will be acceptable in a smiling group :)
Although I had a few ideas for the theme (involving peppercorns would you believe) I had decided in view of the warm weather to abandon all hope and concentrate on digging myself out from under the pile of gardening jobs.
Then I came across this rather sleepy young slow worm and the germ of an idea grew and refused to be ignored.
We’ve had a breeding pair of slow worms in the garden for many years now, sometimes two I think. They are a gardener's best friend eating as they do slugs, and snail and slug eggs.
Strictly speaking, they are not snakes but more of a legless lizard. They are usually quite shy (they tend to get attacked by cats and large birds) so you don’t often see them - they hide under our heathers.
This poor juvenile had got stuck on the concrete at the bottom of the stairs from the upper garden where the nests usually are. The adults have no problem with stairs, but the juveniles aren’t long enough and are not proficient at climbing inside corners. The juveniles, like bird chicks, are less experienced and prone to fall foul of roaming felines.
You can pick them up and they wriggle a bit, the adults being surprisingly strong. But they usually calm down and are quite docile.
Unlike the tropical lizards of my youth they never seem to try and bite you when you handle them so it’s easy to move them to safer parts of the garden when they go astray.
The head of this one is about a centimetre long and the whole animal is about the size of a thin pencil.
Thank you for taking time to look. I hope you enjoy the image (and manage to smile in spite of the subject!). HSoS :)
PS I rather like Flickr's thumbnail of this. Very minimalist!
[Handheld in daylight (No! The camera - I placed the beastie on a sheet of white paper ;-) )
Developed and processed in Affinity Photo.]